Dictionary

Balder en · PROPN

Etymology

Sense 1 is borrowed from Old Norse Baldr. Sense 2 is inherited from Old English Bealdhere (a male given name).

Meanings

1. (Norse) The Norse god of light and purity, a son of Odin and Frigg, known for his beauty and near-invulnerability.
   • Among the Norse, the god Balder is the most closely associated with the solstices. In a myth that explains the actions of the midsummer and midwinter Sun, Balder, the son of the god Odin, was said to die at the hands of his evil brother, who wielded a mistletoe stake each summer solstice. He was reborn at the winter solstice, or what is still known in Germany as Mother Night (the 'mother' in question being the goddess who brings the new born Sun back into existence). 2005, A. Bhatnagar, William Charles Livingston, Fundamentals of Solar Astronomy, page 3:
   • What he does not mention is that Balder is the Norse counterpart of Helios (the Greek forerunner of Sol); he was the god of light, son of Odin and Frigg, as Helios was the son of Hyperion and Theia. 2008, Michael Ward, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, unnumbered page:
   • Balder, the radiant god of sunshine, reminds us not only of Apollo and Orpheus, but of all the other heroes of sun myths. 2010, H. A. Guerber, Hammer of Thor: Norse Mythology and Legends, page 246:
   • It is difficult to understand how the author of The Traditions of the God Balder (Die Uberlieferungen vom Gone Balder) from 1920 in which he compared the Balder cult with earlier Mediterranean beliefs could come out so strongly in favor of Kossinna's ex Septentrione lux scarcely a decade later. 2008, Bernard Thomas Mees, The Science of the Swastika, page 175:
2. A surname.

Forms